I’ve decided to keep things a bit lighter on such a heavy day here and not post reviews of a couple of games just out of common courtesy, Anyway, time for some much-needed comedy:

For his final encore (that’s a little vaudeville joke there, I think), the great W.C. Fields created one of the more surreal comedies of the era that’s just as quirky today as it must have been back when it was originally released. 1941’s Never Give a Sucker an Even Break is the not quite true, but very true story of Fields’ problems in getting his often outrageous for the time comedies past brainless executives and censors who deemed his material too wild for movie audiences. Playing himself, the film is basically Fields trying to sell a screenplay he’s written to a producer at the aptly named Esoteric Pictures with scenes from the script turning into some pretty bizarre and hilarious stagings thanks to some really fun special effects work and plenty of Fields’ comic genius.

This is one of those films where trying to explain every scene or even its funniest moments is an impossibility, but as you can see from that video above, going in cold works best. For fans of Fields’ work, there are bits picked from his older work and updated for the movie as well as plenty of absurd new content to chuckle over. There’s also a car chase at the end that actually tops the one in The Bank Dick in terms of how many times you’ll rewind the scene because you may have missed something while you were rolling on the floor laughing. Like most of his output, Fields is the target of a good deal of the jokes here, but he also skewers plenty of plump targets during the 77-minute running time. The film is also a bit of a sad sendoff for the then 61-year old comedian, whose drinking and health issues related to it would see him take his final curtain call five years after its release.

These days, it seems as if there’s been a resurgence in popularity in his work and to a big fan like me, that’s a really good thing. I say make a night of it and rent this, It’s a Gift and The Bank Dick (perhaps with My Little Chickadee just to get an eyeful of the great Mae West) and plop plenty of cushions on the floor, as you’ll be falling off the couch a few times whether you’re imbibing cocktails or not…